www.BabysBest.co.uk

We all know that successful parenting skills are a combination of love for our children and the ability to set clear boundaries within a routine family life. Admittedly, if parenting was so clear and easy, programmes such as the Supernanny would not have proven so successful.

Bringing up children does not come with a guidebook and there seems to be obvious parenting confusion within our society. More and more people are living away from their extended family, and in order to be able to afford all the trappings of modern family life, parents are often forced to leave children at nurseries. Under these circumstances, parents are expected to raise well-behaved, intelligent children.

Is it that parents are being made incompetent? The endless effort of combining family and working life can prove to be a very difficult juggling act. More parents than ever admit to have parenting problems at some point. This is reflected in the boom of the baby & child market, with increasing numbers of products launched claiming to help with day-to-day parenting tasks. The baby product market expects us to be incompetent for the sake of inventing and selling us unnecessary gadgets. For every situation imaginable we are able to find something that will help us overcome it.

The product world

When reading through a baby & child magazine there is one thing that should strike every reader: the adverts! There is hardly a page not showing a new and "innovative" product: it may be a new scarf to distract your baby for a few minutes, a time-out pad, a new swaddling blanket, stylish maternity bags, harnesses. A lot of these products are indeed interesting and very useful though it seems that parenting skills are left to products and gimmicks rather than parents.

A good example of this is the new "time-out" pad. Equipped with a timer, the parent simply sits their misbehaving child on the pad, sets the timer and leaves the child to 'contemplate'. The key feature of this product is that it alerts the parent when the child leaves the "naughty pad". It takes the "naughty step" idea to a new level, parents should be the ones setting clear boundaries and disciplining children in order to teach respect and understanding. If parents rely on technology to do this, how will children learn these key skills without clear explanation and patience?

Another example is the harness; made for safety reason so that the toddler cannot run away; in principle, in dangerous situations they are a good idea, especially if the little two year old is going through a wild phase. It is one thing to see a little toddler being taken across the car park in a harness when a parent has their hands full of shopping, it is another thing entirely to see a little one being dragged through the park: unable to stop, look at the stones, pick up at the leaves or watch the passing cyclist. It is our responsibility to teach children to stay close at all times rather than holding a string. We should be allowing children to stop and look or listen at their own pace in safe places such as the park whilst making sure that they do not this in a car park. They will quickly learn the difference in environments and what behaviours are acceptable and safe within the context. In fact, learning to risk assess their own environment will make children more safety aware.

Driving them to and from school, not allowing them play outdoors, choosing the latest computer games for entertainment and learning about the world outside from the TV with the reasoning - at least we know that our kids are safe, begs the question - Safe from what? Stifling children from exploring can lead to confidence and emotional development problems, as children grow up with very little understanding of the real world.

The time-out pad, harnesses, computer games and many more products help keep our children safe and keep our parenting skills in line with what is the accepted social norm. We should come to understand that all these gadgets in fact help distract the parent from the actual situation where true parenting skills are most needed. The manufacturers claim to have invented another helper to make a parent's life easier but in reality these things remove the natural parenting skills we are so desperately looking for.

Lack of confidence

With no return in sight to our parental instincts, today's parenting skills mirror our lack of confidence. We live in a society where parents are expected to raise well-behaved, quiet, pleasant children under the pressure of our daily working lives. If our children are having a "wild" day we are desperate for advice and help and feel that we have completely failed.

It is time to understand what is normal and what is superficial: our parental instincts are there to guide us naturally. It is wise to look at a "wonder" product twice before committing to loosing a little bit more parental control; and even if our children behave like little monkeys we should rely more on our instincts to tell us what is really needed.